enough to need no such extravagant exaggeration:

"Monday, July the 16th, we all went out to
meet the king, to accompany him to the town;
and when we had met him he bade us sit down.
We then took seats. Here a man had his hands
tied, and mouth barred, with a fathom of white
bast wove about his loins. He pointed him out
as a messenger that was going to carry private
information to his father. The poor creature
was taken up to the town, and was sacrificed
on the tomb of his father. Another in the same
position was sent up to their large market to go
and tell the spirits there what he was going to do
for his father. About an hour afterwards, there
were brought forward again four men in the
same position, with one deer, one monkey, and
one turkey-buzzard. Here the poor creatures
had their heads cut off, save one. One man was
to go to all the markets and tell all the spirits
what he was about to make for his father; the
second man was to go to all the waters, and tell
all the animals there, &c.; the third man was to
go to all the roads, and tell the spirit-travellers,
&c.; the fourth and last man was to go up to
the firmament, and tell all the hosts there, &c.;
the deer to go to all the forests, and tell the
beasts there, &c.; the monkey to go to all the
swamps, to climb up trees, and tell all the
animals there; the turkey-buzzard, fortunate
creature, was let loose to fly up to the sky, and
tell all the birds there. After this, he got up
from his throne, which was carried along with
him, and drew up his sword, and said, 'As I am
now a king for this kingdom, I will bring down
all the enemies of my father to my footstool.
I will also go down to Abbeokuta, and do to
them as they once did to my father. I will
sweep them up.' He was seconded by his two
chief ministers, called Mingah and Mewu, who
spoke to the same effect. After the speeches,
we accompanied him to the town.

"Tuesday, the 17th, he beat the gong, to
fix a fortnight for the commencement of the
Custom. The Europeans were quite annoyed
at the time fixed, but tried to bear it with
patience.

"Sunday, the 29th, the Custom commenced.
On the eve of the day the whole town slept at
the king's gate, and got up at five o'clock in the
morning to weep. And so they hypocritically
did. The lamentations did not continue more
than ten minutes; and, before the king came
out to fire guns to give notice to all, one
hundred souls had already been sacrificed, besides
the same number of women killed in the inside
of the palace. Ninety chief captains, one
hundred and twenty princes and princesses — all
these carried out separately human beings by
four and two to sacrifice for the late king.
About two or three of the civilised Portuguese
did the same. I believe they gave twenty men
to be sacrificed, besides bullocks, sheep, goats,
drakes, cocks, guinea-fowls, pigeons, coral-
beads, cowries, silver money, rum, &c. After
these three gentlemen, the king thought all
the other proper Europeans should do the same
for him, but none performed such wicked
actions.

"Wednesday, the 1st of August, the king
himself came out to bury his father, with the
following things: Sixty men, fifty rams, fifty goats,
forty cocks, drakes, cowries, &c. The men and
women soldiers, well armed with muskets and
blunderbusses for firing; and when he was gone
round about his palace, he came to the gate and
fired plenty; and there he killed fifty of the
poor creatures, and saved ten.

"Tuesday, August the 16th, we were called
to the king's palace, and at the gate saw ninety
human heads, cut off that morning, and the poor
creatures' blood flowed on the ground like a
flood. The heads lay upon swish beds at each
side of the gate for public view. We went in
to sit down, and soon after he sent out the
property of his fathers, as follows: Two chariots,
one glass wheel, seven plain wheels, three solid
silver dishes, two silver teapots, one silver
sugar-pot, one silver butter-pot, one large cushion
on a wheelbarrow drawn by six Amazons, three
well-dressed silk hammocks with silk awnings.

"Three days after, we went to see the same
things. I saw at the same gate sixty heads laid
upon the same place; and, on three days again,
thirty-six heads laid up. He made four
platforms in their large market-place, on which
he threw cowries and cloths to his people, and
sacrificed there about sixty souls. I dare say
he killed more than two thousand, because he
kills men outside, to be seen by all, and women
inside, privately.

"The pit at Abomey, which was reported to
have been dug deep enough to contain human
blood sufficient to float a canoe, was false. There
were two small pits, of two feet deep and four
feet in diameter each, to contain poor human
blood, but not to float a canoe."

The yearly Customs of Dahomey were first
heard of in Europe in the days of the Dahoman
conquest of Whydah, between the years seventeen
hundred and eight and seventeen 'twenty-
seven. They are periodical continuations of
the Grand Customs, to keep up an annual supply
of fresh attendants for the deceased king in the
other world. The number of victims at a
Grand Custom — and the kings being long-lived,
there have been only seven such Customs in two
centuries and a half — Mr. Bernasko estimates,
as we have seen, at two thousand; at an annual
Custom they are at most eighty, and of these
none but criminals are Dahoman.

There is no fixed seasons for the annual
Customs, which occur in periods between
slavehunts, dignified by the name of wars. In some
years they are Atto customs, from the Atto or
platform whence victims are thrown; in other
years So-sin, or Horse-tie customs, so named
from an attendant ceremony of loosing horses
before the first of the two "evil nights" on
which the Amazons slay women within the
palace, and the men are slain without. Captain
Burton estimates the massacre at a Grand
Custom as low as a thousand, but reckoning the
single victims that are despatched to give